"I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL."

Oh yes, the wisdom of the ages is tied up in that song, 'Alice's Restaurant'

Seriously though, I have been playing the WM for a long time now, and find they have a very hard time competing with the more "economic" races. If the WM ends up in a good alliance they can be devastating. But if not, it seems they cannot compete with the growth of CA, JOAT, or IT.

Start at w6. That's ~1k res with cheap. Can't You spare 1k with
more effective PRT.

25% cheaper weapons. Beams are cheap enough to be of any
difference. Miss/torps would make a huge difference if not for
chaff, which again renders this advantage useless.

.5 increased speed. What's it good for apart from picking out
scouts? MJs on CCs give You enough to counterdesign. OT with
IS-10 on BBs without armor (which I don't add up anyway having
RS) gives You 2.25. So where's that speed advantage? Nubs -
ability not to use MJ, saving a slot, but usually works only
with ultra light nubs (using p23 engine).

BCC. Good thing for CC era, but how long does that last..

DN. Again, didn't You choose const cheap and aren't You racing
to nubs..

Pop attack bonus. When are You going to use pop drop if not
only in beginning and then on worlds that are allready bombed
down marginally.

I don't see anything good in WM to play it. And the lack of
defences and mines is such a serious weakness.

Oh. OK, I see 1 (ONE) very good feature - it's the knowledge of
designs. But then again, 1 (again, only ONE) armed ship can do
that too.

Hmm, I don't pretend to be any authority, but it seems your arguments are not really fair.

regiss wrote on Mon, 27 January 2003 17:51

Start at w6. That's ~1k res with cheap. Can't You spare 1k with more effective PRT.

Generally, no. Not for a long time. Entirely too long when my neighbor is scowling at me behind the barrel of his Yakimora's and laying down the law.

Quote:

25% cheaper weapons. Beams are cheap enough to be of any difference. Miss/torps would make a huge difference if not for chaff, which again renders this advantage useless.

Does that mean cheaper in resources also? Beam weapons tend to be pretty expensive in resources, are they not? If you can build weapons for 25% less resources (and I don't KNOW if you can, honestly) then that seems pretty nice. And whether chaff is present or not, you still have to build those ships, so that point is entirely irrelevant.

Quote:

.5 increased speed. What's it good for apart from picking out scouts? MJs on CCs give You enough to counterdesign. OT with IS-10 on BBs without armor (which I don't add up anyway having RS) gives You 2.25. So where's that speed advantage? Nubs - ability not to use MJ, saving a slot, but usually works only with ultra light nubs (using p23 engine).

Being able to save the slot for something else that your opponent has to use for MJ's and OT's just to be equal sounds nice to me. You can use a speed advantage to good benefit with longer range weapons, and if speeds are maxed at 2.5 with nubians then you can use the slot your opponent wastes on OT's for something else, like beam/deflectors/jammers/capacitors. Or maybe just more of those cheapo weapons.

Quote:

BCC. Good thing for CC era, but how long does that last..

Longer with BCC's? A stack of BCC's is still nothing for an early battleship to sneeze at.

Quote:

DN. Again, didn't You choose const cheap and aren't You racing to nubs..

This ship appears to me to be pretty competetive with nubians, and hey! I wouldn't mind having those at tech 16, no-siree-Bob! And while you putting off building battles
...

Battle Cruisers are a very good hull for their era, and are fine in the early BB era. Dreadnoughts sport more equipment on their hulls than Nubians. Battlecruisers are probably the best gateable ships next to Nubians (hmm Con10 to con26 I might add). Also 1/2 point of movement means you can make severely better Frigate hordes and laser BBs. Laser BBs rarely can move very quickly but WM get 1/2 point added, helps a lot. It is possible to make FFs with a very high battle speed as WM, and easy. The WM gets few advantages in return for a horrible planet side defense, and it must intercept fleets unless it trades for minelayers (common). However the battle advantages can be strained as much as possilbe to create what is actually a noticeably superior force than others if you have the same tech level.

One TRICK, and its a trick mind you. Early Jihad BBs are usually fully laden turtles. These turtles are easily beaten with one fun trick of range 0 BC's. The 1/2 movement BBs can't avoid a fast BC so you can bludgeon it to death(or similiar). Its a trick since a movement above 1/2 or maybe 3/4 (not certain) will beat it by staying out of range just long enough.

Sheilded cruisers with a couple of sheilds and some high powered (ignore range) beams and a fast battle speed will rip apart Jihads.

Jihads are no longer as powerful as they were once considered (unless you're an AR and then they're VERY deadly... build sheilds on every starbase).

Doomsdays are much better. I personally tend to stick with beam weapons until ARMS come about. I've found that a bit of chaff or a bit of jamming with range 3 beams and you'll only take 2 volleys before you get to fire at them... and I'd take 66 damage each time everytime at range 1 over 85 damage at range 2 50% of the time at range 5 anyday.

in equal numbers Jihads vs Miniblaster the blasters always work out on top (for me anyway).

But overload miniblaster vs jiahds and the miniblasters will still take a few good hits.... overloaded Jihads vs miniblasters and who needs armour or sheilding?

i tried a BC-horde approach in a game... i have RS LRT and
put 3 sappers and 6 beamers, 4 shields and 4 jammers on one
of them.
these ships are easily gateable, very fast, highly jammed
and the armor/shield ratio is great. you can build lots of
them and gate them where you need them.
these ships are really hard to kill!
shield stacking is great, and 4 jammers isnt that bad...

a more important wm feature:
there is one trick i like to play against chaff:
use any/any/disengage for your missleboats. his chaff
makes 1 step forward, his other ships 2 or even 3 in the
first round, which means their ships are not protected
by chaff, but yours are.
can make a great difference in a battle.
against a warmonger this does not work, as wm-chaff moves
2 steps in the first turn, so protecting your expensive
ships (ok, not in case your beamers do 3 steps and the
opponent has range5 missles/torpedos)!

a more important wm feature:
there is one trick i like to play against chaff:
use any/any/disengage for your missleboats. his chaff
makes 1 step forward, his other ships 2 or even 3 in the
first round, which means their ships are not protected
by chaff, but yours are.
can make a great difference in a battle.
against a warmonger this does not work, as wm-chaff moves
2 steps in the first turn, so protecting your expensive
ships (ok, not in case your beamers do 3 steps and the
opponent has range5 missles/torpedos)!

Ah yes, the fearsome WM "fast" chaff.

Wonderful until it meets the specialized chaff killer. A high-init fast beamer. Which rushes forward with it's "maximize damage" orders and gets in range of that fast chaff.......
in Round 1. And if its init is slightly better than your missile ships it annihilates most/all of that pretty chaff right before the missile salvo flies.

A counter-tactic exists for most tactics. And, in fact, "fast" chaff has liabilities.

there is one trick i like to play against chaff:
use any/any/disengage for your missleboats. his chaff
makes 1 step forward, his other ships 2 or even 3 in the
first round, which means their ships are not protected
by chaff, but yours are.
can make a great difference in a battle.
against a warmonger this does not work, as wm-chaff moves
2 steps in the first turn, so protecting your expensive
ships (ok, not in case your beamers do 3 steps and the
opponent has range5 missles/torpedos)!

Quote:

(zoid - is this again a "trick" you call a cheat?)

Um, yeah, cuz I lose.
Nice tactic, gonna have to remember that one. My own most brilliant tactic is to bring ten times as many ships, and chase his fleeing fleet until I run out of fuel.

I'M NOT AN EXPERT AND I'M OFTEN PROVEN WRONG. TAKE THAT INTO CONSIDERATION WHEN YOU READ MY POSTS.
Math? Ummm, sure! I do FREESTYLE math.

"I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL."

Oh yes, the wisdom of the ages is tied up in that song, 'Alice's Restaurant'

Seriously though, I have been playing the WM for a long time now, and find they have a very hard time competing with the more "economic" races. If the WM ends up in a good alliance they can be devastating. But if not, it seems they cannot compete with the growth of CA, JOAT, or IT.

Comments?

Going back on the initial question, you are right, WM has a hard time against economic PRT's, but that's also the case of SS, HE and PP if you look at it this way. I also think you are forgetting IS as an eco PRT, and it comes before IT.

Also this is not true in the early stages. With WM, you HAVE TO be agressive early. Expansion is your only chance. Beat your ennemies before their power leverages. In the late game, WM sucks, because without mine fields and good defense, they can loose planets really fast, even if it's sneak attack and the ennemy goes back after each strike, in fear of your huge DN army. So you have to win before they get there.

If you want to have fun with WM, try this: I am playing in a game right now, where all races are WM quickstarts (same design for all taken in the race repository on Starbase Delta) and there is no diplomacy allowed. The point was to test pure strategical and tactical abilities of the players. Let me tell you this has been the best game I have ever played! We basically have been at war since the beginning, and counter designing has been the master piece here. Since you get to know very fast the ennemy design (NAS adding a nice touch here), you have to be extremely responsive.

Many times an attack occurs and some planets are bombed dead (BTW, cherries are always enough, no need for LBU's) th
...

I also have been playing WM for many a year, and find it hard to do well in games. However, it's usually because of backstabbing allies. WM is a hard race to play, but I've seen the effects of a WM race in the hands of a ruthless expert. Games can be one. If you know how.
Mosser

Agreed, I have never personally won with a WM Race but I keep climbing in the ranks. I also agree with the Back stabbing Allies problem. With little defenses and your fleets on the front waging war the back door of the Empire can sometimes be wide open and very inviting for your "Friend".

Can't say I have seen that name for a ship around before but I will keep an eye out for you. What do you normally run for a percentage of growth and Habit. Range?
I am always looking for a better approach to my race designs.

Can't say I have seen that name for a ship around before but I will keep an eye out for you. What do you normally run for a percentage of growth and Habit. Range?
I am always looking for a better approach to my race designs.

I was a replacement player for that race. I've never played a WM that I've designed. I'd probably go for a HG or QS race, especially for WM, you're powerful early, might as well combine that with a fast race, and go for some early kills. -f would probably work too, but after playing RWIAB, I don't like -f.